Saintnapping

In the inky darkness of 1 a. m. a squad of British police with side arms surrounded a small bungalow in the village of Ashram Karadi near Surat one momentous night last week.

Silently through the bungalow's open door entered an Englishman with an electric torch, a magistrate representing The Emperor.

A few hours earlier George V had assented, as Emperor of India, to what was about to be done. His assent had been cabled by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald to the Viceroy of India, Baron Irwin. Making grotesque patterns of light and shadow, the flashlight danced about the bungalow until it picked out sleeping St. Gandhi who stirred, awakened blinking, grasped the situation at once and quietly observed:

"So you have come for me?"

"Yes."

"Will you permit me to brush my teeth before I accompany you?"

"Y-y-yes," said the flabbergasted magistrate.

Rising and lighting a lamp, the Saint took up his toothbrush, covered the bristles with coarse grey granules, began to scrub. "I am brushing my teeth with contraband salt. I presume I am being arrested for breaking the salt laws?"

Rather sheepishly the magistrate explained that St. Gandhi was not being "arrested." After much delving the smart advisors of the Viceroy had unearthed an ordinance 103 years old. Under article 25 of this disused law it is still the absolute prerogative of the Crown to incarcerate under "personal restraint'' in India, "anyone against whom there may not be sufficient grounds for institution of judicial proceedings, or against whom such proceedings might not be adapted to the nature of the case." Foreign statesmen could but humble themselves again at this fresh proof of the British "genius for government."

Goat's Milk. In a special first-class railway car, St. Gandhi was rushed unresisting through the night to Borivli. Outside this town the train halted and the prisoner was ushered into a handsome limousine with rich, closely drawn curtains, the type of car in which the wife of an Indian Maharajah is taken for a ride. With an Englishman disguised as an Indian chauffeur at the wheel, the car sped to Yeroda jail in Poona. There officials did all in their power to make St. Gandhi comfortable, showed reporters a dozen woolly animals of purest strain, purchased by His Majesty's Government to supply the prisoner with his favorite beverage: goat's milk.

Nervous Breakdown. Why was St. Gandhi in effect kidnaped by due process of law? The crushing mental and moral stresses set up by his movement had caused the nervous breakdown, earlier in the week, of Sir Horatio Norman Bolton, chief commissioner of the North West Frontier Prince. In a state of emotional collapse Sir Horatio sailed for England, beaten by weapons beyond his ken, as St. Gandhi hopes many another and finally all Englishmen will sail. Moreover, mutiny was in the air. After hiding the fact for days, His Majesty's Government was obliged to admit in an official communique last week that the conduct of two platoons of the second battalion of the 18th Royal Garswal Rifles at Peshawar recently was "unsatisfactory"--that is, these Hindu troops disobeyed their British commander's order to fire on a Hindu mob. With unrest seething hotter and hotter all over India it was no mean proof of Baron Irwin's iron nerve and fitness for the post of Viceroy that the saintnapping was accomplished with such masterly finesse.

"There will be . . . battle!" Avowedly St. Gandhi has been courting jail, but when he achieved this "martyrdom" last week, immediate results were meagre. Baron Irwin had taken the precaution to revive and strengthen the disused Press Act of 1910, decreed that every obstreperous Indian newspaper must post high bonds to obey the Censor or cease publication. At one stroke this not only muzzled but stopped the presses of many provincial editors who dared not risk a large forfeiture plus the further risk of confiscation of their entire plants at the Government's pleasure. To stifle criticism further, the Viceroy used his imperial power to suspend for the remainder of 1930 the chief political bodies: the executive council and the legislative assembly.

Gagged by Britain, enjoined by St. Gandhi to nonviolence, Indians faced appeals by his followers to join in a "Day of Mourning," march in protest parades, participate in hartals (do-nothing strikes). Shops were shuttered and barred in Bombay, Ahmadabad, Jalalpur as great numbers of workers struck in these cities. Guarded by armored cars, some factories at Bombay kept going, their workers harried by swarms of pickets. Censorship made certain that any bad news would be at least delayed. Said Mrs. Gandhi mildly when told of her husband's incarceration: "I hope India will show her mettle and make a fitting reply to the Government's unwarranted action." Cried Devi Das Gandhi (son), as he was jailed for "sedition" last week at New Delhi: "There will be a great battle raging presently that cannot but end in the liberation of India!"

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